15 most deranged serial killers in Texas

15 most deranged serial killers in Texas

Texas documented its first serial killer in the 1880s and since then several other killers who have left a tragic and terrifying mark in the history of Texas have been documented throughout the years. These serial killers murdered their victims either by stabbing, poisoning, use of firearms, burning, suffocating or strangling them. Although some of the killers committed suicide or escaped upon their arrest most of them were captured and were exposed to severe punishment by the law. They are given long-term sentences in prison or lifetime sentences in prison as their punishment. Therefore, we are going to look at the most deranged serial killers and how they committed their unlawful horrifying acts on the streets of Texas.

1. Joe Ball

Ball, also known as the Butcher of Elmendorf was a serial killer in Texas who murdered two women who were working at his bar and he buried them on the beach. Clifford Wheeler confessed about these two murders because he had helped Ball to dispose of the bodies and he also admitted there were like 20 more women who Joe had killed. Ball’s pond that he had built behind the bar harboured alligators that he used to throw live cats, dogs and human bodies. It was through this act that Joe was also nicknamed the Alligator Man. Unfortunately, Ball committed suicide when he was being questioned about the missing women.

2. Carl Eugene Watts

A picture of a crime scene tape by Kat Wilcox-Wikimedia

Carl also known as the Sunday Morning Slasher was born on November 7^th 1953 in Killeen, Texas. It was suspected that Carl killed over 100 women by breaking into their homes and stabbing his victim to death. When Carl was captured and arraigned in court, he cut a deal to only face burglary charges if he confessed to the suspected murders. The deal was accepted and he confessed to 13 murders in Texas. After Carl was released in custody in Texas, he was still facing murder charges in Michigan which was not part of the Texas deal. He was later convicted of murder in Michigan twice that is in 2004 and 2007. Unfortunately, Carl died of prostate cancer just a few weeks after his second conviction.

3. Genene Jones

medics working at a pedriatic intensive care unit. Photo by L.A Shivley-Wikimedia

Genene Jones worked in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of Bexar County Hospital in the early 1980s. It was at this hospital that Genene committed her unlawful acts by killing children who were under her care. She injected them with lethal doses of drugs that induced paralysis or heart failure. She was later removed from that hospital and she went to work at the Kerrville hospital in Texas. She continued with her ruthless acts until she was sentenced to 99 years in prison for killing a 15-month-old- baby with whom she injected a very powerful muscle relaxer in 1985. In 2017 she was again found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for killing Joshua Sawyer who was just 11 months old.

4. Charles Albright

Although he was found guilty of murdering Shirley Williams and was sentenced to life imprisonment, Charles committed several other murders. He assaulted and shot three sex workers in Texas. He then proceeded to remove their eyeballs from their eyes just the same as what he had done with Shirley Williams. He was also known as the “Eyeball Killer” because of his brutal acts of removing the victims’ eyeballs from their eyes. Charles died in prison on August 22^nd, 2020, at the age of 87.

5. Dean Corll

A picture of a candy store. The killer used to lure small kids with candy-Wikimedia

Dean Corll was also known as the “Candyman” because he used to work at the family candy shop which was across the street from an elementary school, he was also known for giving kids free candy. Dean had two teenage accomplices, Elmer Wayne and David Brooks, who used to lure victims into Dean’s home with promises of a party or a ride home. Dean will then abduct, rape, and tortured his victims before burying their bodies. He used to pay his accomplices $200 for each victim they bring. Between 1970 and 1973, Dean had already killed at least 28 people. In 1973 one of his accomplices Elmer grabbed a gun and shot him in the head because he felt that Dean had gotten too far with his last murder.

6. The Phantom Killer

The Phantom killer killed young couples who used to park their cars on lover’s lane and parking spots for lovers to kiss between February 22 to May 3, 1946. He performed these unlawful acts in the wee hours of the night. It was reported that he had killed at least five to six people, while 3 of his victims were wounded but survived. One of the victims who survived narrated that the killer was wearing a white sack with holes cut out for his eyes. He then disappeared after a 10-week period of performing these tragic acts and up to today, the Phantom Killer’s identity is still unknown. In 1976, they made a movie called “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” which is based on the Phantom Killer.

7. Kenneth McDuff

A picture of law enforcement officers at a crime scen by Tony Webster-Wikimedia

Kenneth McDuff, also known as the “Broomstick Killer,” is a name he was given after he raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl using a broomstick to break her neck in 1966. It was reported that Kenneth was responsible for killing 15 people including his boyfriend and his cousin. He was captured and after serving a short time in prison, Kenneth was paroled in 1989 after bribing a member of the parole board to free him. During his parole period, he proceeded to murder at least five more women in the Waco and Temple area and there could be more victims. He was finally caught and convicted of Capital Murder in 1993. He was later executed via lethal injection by the state in 1998.

8. The Servant Girl Annihilator

The Servant Girl Annihilator was also known as the Austin Axe Murderer and was an unidentified killer who created panic and tragic fear in the city of Austin, Texas, between 1884 and 1885. The killer murdered at least eight victims and five of these victims were African American women employed as domestic servants. The killer used an axe to attack the victims while they were asleep and then sexually assaulted them. It was believed by some of the theories that a 19-year-old Nathan Elgin had committed the murders but others also believed that the Servant Girl Annihilator moved to London and became Jack the Ripper.

9. Angel Maturino Resendiz

A picture of the railroad killer by the FBI-Wikimedia

Angel Maturino Resendiz, also known as the “Railroad Killer,” a name he was nicknamed because he would train-hop and commit murder near the railway. Resendiz would rape his victims and sometimes he would steal their jewellery and their money before killing them. He would later send the stolen items to his wife in Mexico. Although he committed most murders near the railway, some of his victims were murdered at their homes; Leafie Mason, Neomi Dominguez and Josephine Konvicka. Between the 1980s and 1990s, Angel had already committed 15 murders in Texas and other parts of the country. It was later believed that he had killed about 23 people before he was eventually captured and executed via lethal injection on June 27, 2006, in Texas.

10. Tommy Lynn Sells

Tommy Lynn Sells also known as “The Coast-to-Coast Killer” was a serial killer who is alleged for one single murder but he is likely responsible for over 50 murders. Tommy had a very traumatic childhood; he was affected by his twin sister’s death and his mother’s boyfriend’s sexual molestation. Although the police believed that he started killing in 1985, Sells confirmed that his first killing was way back when he killed a man who was molesting a young boy just when he was 16. The murder of 13-year-old Kaylene Jo “Katy” led to his conviction but he was also convicted of the rape and killing of a 9-year-old in 1999. The state of Texas refused to let him leave death row and he was eventually executed via lethal injection on April 3, 2014.

11. Anthony Allen Shore

An animated orbit of a DNA strand by Richard Wheeler-Wikimedia

Anthony Allan Shore also known as the “Tourniquet Killer” was a serial killer in Texas who used ligatures to strangle his victims hence the name Tourniquet Killer. Anthony was a child molester and was also the killer of one woman and three girls whom he murdered between 1986 and 1995. In 2003 a DNA match led to his arrest and later on he was also found guilty of the 1992 murder of 21-year-old Maria Del Carmen Estrada. He was finally sentenced to death for his crimes and he got executed by lethal injection on January 18, 2018.

12. Henry Lee Lucas

Henry Lee Lucas also known as the confession killer was a very notorious serial killer in history. Growing up, he had a traumatic childhood as he was rejected in high school because his mother forced him to cross-dress and also because of his eye which was poked out with a knife by his brother and was forced to wear a glass eye. His mother also was a prostitute and she forced Henry to watch as he had sex with her clients. Henry’s drunkard father died also when he was an adolescent.

Henry later murdered his mother after an argument in self-defense in 1960. He proceeded to kill several other people and after he was arrested, he confessed to hundreds of murders which were lies. Only two murders were linked to him as the human remains were discovered in Texas. Lucas died of heart failure while serving life imprisonment on March 12, 2001.

13. Carrol Cole

A 1985 mugshot of Carol l Cole-Wikimedia

Cole faced bullying from his classmates because of his girls’ names. It was through this bullying that he committed his first murder at the age of 10 by drowning one of his classmates in a lake. His mother also stirred up his acts of killing after he dressed him up as a girl and beat him into keeping his mouth shut because he had found her cheating on his father. Cole went across the country and when he was in Dallas, he strangled 3 women in 1980. He also married an exotic dancer and when he suspected she was cheating on him he burnt the motel he believed he was cheating in. Cole confessed that he had killed at least 15 women in Texas and other places. He was then sentenced to life in prison in Texas in 1981 but the Nevada state gave him the death penalty in 1984. Cole was executed via lethal injection on December 6, 1985.

14. Faryion Wardrip

Faryion Wardrip was in his 20s when he murdered five women around Wichita Falls, Texas in the mid-1980s. He was captured by the authorities but he only admitted that he killed one woman, Tina Kimbrew who he suffocated with a pillow because she reminded him of his ex-girlfriend. He was then sentenced to 35 years in prison for this unlawful act that he confessed. After 11 years in prison, Wardrip was released on parole and he started a new life in Olney, Texas. In 1999 a detective revived the case of the four murders by investigating the murders. The DNA match led to Wardrip arrest and he confessed to all four murders. He was sentenced to death and three life sentences for his crimes.

15. Robert Ben Rhoades

A mugshot of Rhoades by the Illinios Department of Corections-Wikimedia

Robert Ben Rhoades also known as the “Truck Stop Killer,” was a long-haul truck driver who would wait for his victims at the pit stop and killed them. His home base was in Houston but he transported his victims across the states including Texas. Robert before murdering his victims, he would torture and rape them first. Robert was convicted of and executed for one murder of a girl; Regina Kay Walters, 14 abducted for almost a month and tortured, later killing her and dumping her body in a barn in Illinois. It is also believed that he could be responsible for the murder of 50 women across several states including Texas.